Purpose: Thyroid nodules are a kind of common endocrine system disease, with approximately 5% of them developing into malignant lesions, the most common of which belong to differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC). Accurate differential diagnosis using reliable methods and targeted treatment of benign and malignant thyroid nodules are of great significance to improve patient outcomes. This study mainly investigates the diagnostic value of thyroglobulin (Tg) and anti-thyroglobulin antibody (anti-TgAb) combined with emission computed tomography (ECT) in the adjuvant diagnosis DTC.
Methods: All the data of 387 histopathologically diagnosed DTC patients (observation group) and 151 patients with nodular goiter (control group) admitted between June 2019 and June 2021 were collected and retrospectively analyzed. Serum Tg and anti-TgAb levels were detected in all subjects. In addition, all patients in the observation group underwent thyroid ECT, and the results were compared with the pathological findings. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn to analyze the diagnostic performance of Tg, TgAb and thyroid ECT, either alone or in combination, in patients with thyroid cancer (TC).
Results: The consistency test showed that Tg (Kappa-value = 0.370) and anti-TgAb (Kappa-value = 0.393) had generally consistent efficiency with pathological findings in the diagnosis of DTC; ECT (Kappa-value = 0.625) and the combined diagnosis of the three (Kappa-value = 0.757) showed higher consistency than the pathological diagnosis, of which the combined diagnosis contributed to an even higher consistency. The combined diagnosis of Tg, anti-TgAb, and thyroid ECT outperformed either of these alone in DTC diagnosis, with a sensitivity of 91.5%, a specificity of 86.1%, and an accuracy of 90%.
Conclusions: The combination of Tg. anti-TgAb, and RNI can effectively improve the diagnostic accuracy of DTC and reduce the missed diagnosis rate, which has important reference significance for clinical diagnosis and treatment of TC.
Keywords: Differentiated thyroid carcinoma; anti-thyroglobulin antibody; diagnostic value; radionuclide imaging; thyroglobulin.